The other day we were modeling our typical client’s spending when we realized something disturbing – an average Bay Area-based young couple has to own equity in a business if they hope to send their kids to a good university and be able to retire well.

Investing well alone can’t get you there.

Our analysis found you need to work for at least one company where your equity stake can generate at least a few hundred thousand dollars after tax to make your economics work in the Bay Area.

The problem is the hole that opens up in a typical couple’s budget when they are in their late 30s. Three big pressures converge then: the mortgage on your expensive Bay Area home, and the dueling needs to fund your retirement and your kids’ college early so that you take advantage of compounding.

That’s why we say: You need equity to live in Silicon Valley.

And we say, you need even more equity to live in The Real Silicon Valley. Then again, you could always rent AND send your kids to Community College and Cal State AND move to Arkansas for your Golden Years.

Basically this is another one of those “We make $250,000 a year and we feel sooooooo poooooor” pieces. Please all join in this First World Problems Pity Party because in lieu of another crap house for your disapproval.

When a cellphone camera is Insufficient

August 5, 2013

We’ve discussed Real Bay Area cred many times here, and one way to tell you’re dealing with the RBA is that of course your property should attract plenty of overbidding. Burbed reader steve writes in to let us know about a blog post that discussed what the sellers are thinking when getting those bids.

This couple traded up from Mountain View to Palo Alto, rebuilding their house as well. But it’s this piece on the sale of their Mountain View house that we think Burbed readers would find intriguing. What kind of bids go straight into the trash, never to be considered? Which bids made it to Round 2 of overbidding? And do you consider the “winner” of this process to be the Stupidest Person Left Standing, or the Lucky Owner of a home in Mountain View’s finest zip code?

Kudos to our real estate agent, Erika Enos! Our house sold fast and for more than we were expecting.

This week we officially handed over the keys to the Cuesta Park Charmer. We are very happy that we found a nice new family to love the home and the process went relatively smoothly. Compared to the angst of being on the bidding side of the table being a seller is this market is a joyride. Here’s how everything played out:

You can read all the details over on Kay Luo’s site HomeCrunch, which is mostly about their adventures building their new house there. But what can the Burbed reader take away from this sellers-eye-view of the overbidding process? Let’s take a look at the house itself.

This couple did one thing right: they bought in the RBA. We know this house is in the RBA, not only from the 94040 zip code, but the fact that the home sold for more than double in only eight years. QED! (That stands for Quite Excellent Deal!) They did this despite not having a picture of the front of the house in the first picture, too.

Now, let’s examine what we can learn from the blog post itself.

First, the list of which offers were considered and which weren’t is useful. If you’re still house hunting, maybe you’re making one of the mistakes called out there. That means stop putting in contingencies in your bids during a seller’s market. Instead, ask the seller what contingencies they would like to place onto the buyer. How about 90 days’ free rent after the sale for starters?

Next, while suitcases full of cash may not be King, they’re still pretty Ace.

Third, if you write an entertaining blog, you can send plenty of people to look at your virtual tour. That is, you can get more referrals from you own blog than the MLS.

Fourth, you know those stupid beg letters we’ve been laughing at? They work. So if you want to buy someone’s house full of family memories and rip it to pieces, write a tear-jerking letter about how much you love the place and how it’s perfect for your 2.1 children and pooch. After you buy it, fire up the bulldozer because it’s yours and tough luck if the sellers actually believed your fanfiction.

August 4, 2013

We’ve been boosting the Bay Area Bubble 4.0 news all year. Now, another voice joins in the chorus we started months ago. And this is a one of our long-time fans, PK from DQYDJ! That stands for Don’t Quit Your Day Job. Recently PK revisited the post that introduced the Bay Area Income and Home calculator, so this is definitely worth your while!

Two years ago (well, September 28, 2011 anyway), we regaled you on this site with tales about how the Bay Area’s home prices – while admittedly quite high – were complete justifiable. If you don’t have time to read those prescient words, I can summarize: home prices may have been high in 2011, but Bay Area households pulled in a ton of income (second only to the Government driven economies around Washington, D.C.), making houses somewhat affordable to many households in the area.

Am I proud of that call now that we’ve seen 20% year over year price returns in many areas, and 52% absolute returns on the house I purchased in July 2011? Well, yeah, of course I am. However, the mark of a truthful person is to change your opinion when presented with new data. Here’s to being honest: the Bay Area is getting pretty frothy.

Told ya.

While we do want you to head over to PK’s site and read it, we’ve got the new calculators for you to play around with right here for afters. First, here’s where you can see how well your income stacks up against the competition. Zuckerberg, you’re not, but go ahead and type in your income and see where you are compared to everyone else.

Remember, Inner Bay Area isn’t quite the same thing as Real Bay Area, because the former is by county. Everyone in San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara is included. Unfortunately they also invited Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, and by adding those East Bay locales the numbers already skew down. Leaving out Marin County made prices even lower! Wanted: data so we can unskew these calculators by zip code!

Next, here’s the home edition, whoops, the home value edition. Are you building a Larry Page-type compound in the most prestigious part of Palo Alto? Didn’t think so. But you can find out how affordable your home is, or the home you’re thinking of buying, or the home Larry Page is going to buy.

Let us know what you think of PK’s calculators, or anything else you’d like to talk about. Yes, it’s Weekend Open Thread time! How affordable were the Open Houses you saw this weekend?

March 31, 2013

Happy Easter! This means NOW is the time for Spring Real Estate selling season to begin Bouncing in earnest. We’ve been telling you about Bay Area Bubble 4.0, so just imagine how much win Real Bay Area home prices will have starting tomorrow!

That’s not all the Easter Eggs we’ve found under our bedecked and bowtied basket! Here’s a few more the Burbed Bunny brought to beaucoup browsers.

We appreciate all our readers who send us awesome listings (and you know by awesome, we mean something that is exactly the opposite of awesome). If you have a great example of Real Estate Fail, send it to one of our email contacts in the upper right corner.

Best of all is when you visit an Open House and take some photos of things that the agent didn’t think best reflected the property’s best features. Yes, we love your photos too!

We also love our readers’ comments. Please be sure to stop by and show each listing as much love as it deserves.

Finally, we’re going to be part of another Big Blog Bonanza. Tomorrow begins a new month, and we’re going to be joining the fun with over 1700 other blogs in the April 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge. For many bloggers, the difficulty of merely writing one post every day brings anxiety, fear, or wrestling with the dreaded blogger’s block. We’ve been putting out an article pretty much every day for seven years, but having topics line up with the alphabet will give us an interesting tour of the Bay Area. Feel free anytime to nominate some suggestions for letters to come! We’re still wondering just what to do with that pesky letter X.

March 25, 2013

We did make it over to the old Wozniak place during yesterday’s Open House. And we took pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. We can assure you that some of the notable improvements to the property, such as the fireman’s pole, the cave, and the twisty little maze of passages, all different, are still there. Here’s just a taste of the photoblog to come.

You may have also noticed that we’ve been moving the furniture back and forth on our pages. Some of the new additions seem good, and some just aren’t working out quite as well as we’d like. Notice that little Redfin sign where it says “location, location, location?” That links to our growing photo Collections over there. Please check it out. Another thing to check out is our twitter feed (and yes, we know we should be posting the feed right to the site. A site redesign first would help. We’re working on it, really. Why do you think we keep moving the furniture?) The sharing options don’t seem to work as advertised, f’rinstance. Anyone want us to try the thumbs up/down again? We kind of miss them. (This allowed you to vote yea or nay on both posts and comments.)

Finally, we joined into a Blogtacular scheme called the Blog Blitz. We think it’s a good idea, and if you write your own blog, you can also be part of it. By joining the group, you agree that when DL Hammons, who started it all, says “Everyone Blitz this Blog!” you will head over to the chosen site on the appointed day and post some helpful or encouraging comment there. It’s true, people who write blogs love it when their readers post something useful.

Now, in the case of Burbed, “helpful or encouraging” does not necessarily mean “I love your blog and read it every single day and twice on Sundays!” (although we don’t object to such fawningly overdone praise either). Useful would be either informing us about the property of the day or sharing something related to it or making a snarkilicious observation. All this goes to say if you join us in signing up for Blog Blitz, please read whatever blog you’re asked to post in before chiming in with “Me too! All the way!”

We’ve listed the participants below (if this LinkyTools code works properly) and you can join in right here. If you don’t see any blog list (we’re #127, which is 2^7-1, perfect for a Silicon Valley-based site), then obviously the script stopped working, so head over to DL’s site and sign up there. Who knows, maybe someday we’ll be blitzed and for one delightful day, we’ll be back to the glory days of a 150+ comment thread.

March 23, 2013

Want to look at Open Houses but inventory is too low? Here’s yet another reason why Bay Area Bubble 4.0 is in full swing for Spring: Flash sales. Redfin coined this term for a house that’s in contract within 24 hours of being listed.

They also made a list of how many flash sales there have been in the last five months in each of the markets they cover, and San Jose came in 15th out of 15 with 74 quickies. San Francisco didn’t even make the cut at all! All-time flash sales champion? Phoenix, with 540.

This Skyline Circle home in Oakland was a Flash Sale and is featured on the Redfin Blog. It sold quick, and for list price. This is how we know Oakland, even in the hills, is not the Real Bay Area. Everyone knows Real Bay Area homes sell way over asking. Also RBA homes don’t fester on the market for a year and a half until the Bubble finally blows up again. The HOA dues are just the sickly sweet icing on the Not RBA cake.

“This house never even hit the market! We had a brokers’ tour in the afternoon on the very same day the house was to hit the market. A broker came in with his buyers who offered all-cash at full list price and with the quick closing we had requested, making it an easy choice for my clients to accept their offer that same day.” – Lynda DiVito, San Francisco Bay Area Redfin Agent

Planning on visiting any Open Houses today? Let us know of any suitcases full of cash changing hands you see. This is also your Weekend Open Thread, so sky’s the limit!

East Bay Real Estate Focus — Providing Definitive Information for the East Bay Area By Carl Medford | Agent in Fremont, CAPosted under: Market Conditions in Alameda County, Home Buying in Alameda County, Home Ownership in Alameda County | January 26, 2013 8:22 AM | 257 views | 1 comment

Truth is, no one knows exactly how many have decided to sit things out a bit until the market calms down. Although we’ve seen a decline in the number of buyers “actively in the hunt,” in reality, there are not “fewer” first-time buyers – if anything, there are more. LOTS more. The problem is that less of them are actually managing to buy a home, and, unfortunately, that’s the primary statistic that is being measured. No one is sitting outside open houses counting the bodies as they hit the front door and then compiling the numbers to a national database. If they did, a much different story would be on the evening news.

Buyers trying to purchase a home in the existing market conditions are facing into the teeth of a perfect storm, real-estate style, and it doesn’t appear that it will be ending anytime soon.

Here are the Top 10 issues facing Bay Area buyers:

Actually, as realtard happyprop goes, this is a little bit better informed than most. It does say something other than “NOW IS THE TIME TO BUY,” and best of all, the disturbing faceless and sexless icons include the ever-popular, we swear we are not making this up, Dude With A Suitcase Full of Cash. We know you won’t believe without seeing, so here he is. (And from the minimal clothing, it’s either a Dude or it’s Annie Hall.)

Here’s that Top Ten list. If you’ve been a regular reader of Burbed, none of these should surprise you.

Sorry, you missed the bottom. Sucks to be you. Medford says February 2012 was the official bottom. Maybe it was… in the East Bay.

Inventory? What inventory? Raw meat, here’s the sharks.

Prices are going up. Some areas are up 40% from last year. Actually, if Mr. Real Estate Person had read the actual data instead of just looking at a piece in the Chron, he’d have seen that some areas are up a lot more than 40%.

Lots of cash buyers out there. Yeah, and not just in the hellhole that’s the East Bay. RBA too, only these aren’t investors. On this item the realtard confuses the difference between “Central County” (probably Alameda County given the link) and the entire Bay Area in claiming 30% of all offers are cash.

Crowds lead to multiple offers. Take low inventory and desperate sellers, what do you expect, other than the author citing hard numbers with his opinion columns from a different site.

FHA or VA buyer? Don’t even bother in this market; even conventional buyers are losing out to Mr. Suitcase. And Mr. Suitcase doesn’t care about appraisals.

Appraisers haven’t a clue prices are up, which is preventing prices from going up even faster. Includes helpful link to another of his columns mostly about packed open houses with one throw-away graf about appraisers. What stayed with us was the tsetse flies. But there was something useful mentioned: appraisers were blamed for the last bubble, and they’re not ready for this one. Yet.

Banks are mucking up your loan even more than usual, although the link provided explaining the loan approval process doesn’t look to us like anything has changed much. We suppose if you’re a realtard remembering the glory days of If You Can Fog This Mirror You Can Buy This House, you’d have a different opinion.

Bank underwriters especially are being poopy-heads, and Medford’s happy to give some examples. Most of them look like underwriters working through a pile of documents, marking off inconsistencies, and resolving them later, where later is some period greater than the five minutes realtards think is appropriate.

While we are perfectly capable of posting house after house in the five mile radius of The Googleplex, we would never confuse the RBA with the entire Bay Area. Just because an agent can write a column even longer than one of ours doesn’t mean he won’t commit the Fallacy of Composition. The East Bay isn’t the entire Bay Area any more than the South Peninsula is. Market conditions vary, so may your mileage, and definitely will housing prices.

But we can guarantee there will always be some real estate professionals out there who take a few shortcuts. Let’s give this one a golf clap for giving the appearance of a housing market review, even if he found ten different ways to say You Are Now Priced Out Forever.

January 26, 2013

Thanks very much to Burbed reader Real Estater, who passes along the news that We’re Number One. Again. That is, We’re Number One as long as you don’t count ranches with a hundred thousand acres in Montana.

WOODSIDE — A legendary investor’s sprawling estate here has sold for $117.5 million, one of the highest prices ever for a residential property in the U.S.

The sale price eclipses the previous Silicon Valley record of $100 million paid for a Los Altos Hills mansion by Russian investor Yuri Milner in 2011 and comes amid a red-hot market for luxury home sales in Silicon Valley and the Peninsula.

The private sale was closed in November between the owner, private equity investor Tully M. Friedman, and an undisclosed buyer represented by SV Projects, according to public records.

Nice going, San Jose Mercury “We once were a real News organization! Really!” You’re reporting on a record-breaking property sale and couldn’t find any pictures of the property? And it’s not like you didn’t have a few leads to go look for them. Like the one from SFLuxe you alluded to at the end of your story and didn’t even hotlink in.

Their article has several excellent photos of delicious houseporn, all credited to photographer Jay Graham.

SFLuxe states their article is an exclusive, so they must have an arrangement with Graham to feature his photos. Do check out their article. In the meantime, Redfin is redirecting any requests to see the property record with a lovely redirect loop, so let’s see what we can find out elsewhere.

Update 20:50 — The Redfin link is working again but it’s been somewhat scrubbed. What a coinky-dinky.

DescriptionThis 8930 square foot single family home has 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms. It is located at 360 Mountain Home Rd Woodside, California.

Sure makes you wonder about those Zestimates when they’re off by 500%, although it’s hard to model paying top dollar for bragging rights.

We’re not going to find much in the public real estate websites, because the property was never listed for sale. Still, the SFLuxe article gives a few hints. The architect is Allan Greenburg, who featured four photos of the house in his online portfolio:

This northern California home sits in an elaborate hilltop garden. Reflecting the strong Palladian tradition in the United States, it is planned around hyphens and dependencies and features a double volume, elliptical garden room.

January 19, 2013

Everyone knows that Silicon Valley is the best place to launch a startup. But what if you have a brilliant idea and want to move to the area to network with all those brilliant people, but you are held back by two things?

1. You aren’t an American citizen (or non-citizen who managed to snag Permanent Residency), and

2. You don’t have enough cash that Immigration would wave you through the line

Take a Good Look at Me, I’m on a Futhermucking Boat!

Blueseed claims to have solved this problem. All you need is a short-term visa, because you’re not staying in the United States. Instead, you’re staying on a futhermucking boat outside the 12 nautical mile limit of the U.S. (The 12–24 mile zone is also known as the contiguous zone.) Blueseed plans to build some kind of floating city 12 nautical miles beyond Half Moon Bay and run twice daily ferries to the mainland. And by “floating city,” they mean raft-up.

Your job, dear Burbed readers, is to figure out if this is a project by The Onion or whether these people are actually serious. But get this. They’re charging “a combination of rent and equity.” Does this mean you would not be a rentard aboard?

Top 10 Facts about Blueseed

1 Who is this for? – The world’s best entrepreneurs and visionariesThe boldest, brightest, and most talented tech entrepreneurs from around the world. Plus the individuals and organizations that support and invest in them. 1100+ have already expressed interest.

Yes, you’re about to be priced out forever. Again!

2 Where will it be? – Right near Silicon ValleyOn a ship anchored half an hour (12 miles) from Silicon Valley, in international waters outside the jurisdiction of the United States.

But well within drone strike range. So don’t get cute with the industrial espionage.

3 What does it cost? – Around $1,600 USD/person/monthWe’ll charge a combination of rent and equity to accommodate the stage of your startup. The price per person will include living and office space, and will range from $1200 for a shared cabin to $3000 for a top-tier single accommodation cabin.

And you better spring for that top-tier single, or it won’t be Special. Come on, you want to live in the Real Boat Area, don’t you? Avoid the cabins on busy hallways, or next to the helipad.

4 Why should it be done? – Because innovation is awesomeThe world’s best entrepreneurs should be able to gather and collaborate in one place, and not be limited by antiquated work visa restrictions.

And if those antiquated work restrictions force you to move onto a cast-off cruise ship, then you can make lemonade out of lemons, provided you’re willing to call lemon juice lemonade.

5 How can I get aboard? – Do something that matters, and be awesomeGet referred to us through a reputable angel, venture capital firm, entrepreneurs network, or trusted contact. Or surprise us.

Throw yer grapple and haul yerself aboard, matey! Why not commit a little actual piracy so you can convince us you want to work on the digital variety?

6 Can I legally work? – On Blueseed, yes.You can legally earn an income working on your startup while on the Blueseed vessel regardless of your nationality, but you can’t legally earn a paycheck while visiting the mainland, unless you have a US work visa or are a US permanent resident.

So please don’t do anything more useful than winning a round of Angry Birds when leaving the boat.

7 Can I travel to the mainland? – YesYou can travel to the mainland using business/tourist visas (B1/B2), for up to 180 days/year (these are significantly easier to obtain than work-visas). US residents can travel to Blueseed at any time.

Unless they’ve already been vaporized by a drone strike. Sorry!

8 What happens when I succeed and outgrow Blueseed? – We help you move to the mainland.Silicon Valley is the best place in the world to scale a company, and once you’re large enough there are legal channels available to move into Silicon Valley proper. We will provide you with the resources and contacts you need to make the transition.

9 When are you launching? – End of 2013We plan to launch between Q4 2013 and Q1 2014.

You know how those house construction projects always run late? What do you think would happen if you tried building all this in the Pacific Ocean? That’s why we said we plan to launch then, not that we would.

10 My organization supports startups, how do I join the project? – Partner up or Contact usWe’re primarily looking for incubators, support networks, and individuals or organizations that make our environment more awesome while solving a startup’s problems.

Blueseed is already pitching themselves as a relative bargain compared to actually living in Silicon Valley. The rent (starting at $1200 a month for shared living space, mind you) also includes collaborative office space, more conventionally known as “good luck finding a seat somewhere in here.”

And while you won’t need a suitcase full of cash (as you would for an EB-5 investor visa), you would need to deposit enough money to pay for your ticket home.

Maybe the folks running Blueseed could invest your ticket deposits by buying a place near Google. Now that’s some equity.

Disclaimer

The posts on this weblog are provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confer no rights. The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and only represent the view of Burbed.com's editor. Comments are the views of commenters, not Burbed. If companies, properties, etc are mentioned on this blog, you should assume that I have a financial stake in them. Trust no one.